A worthy guide for Christian readers looking to supplement their daily meditation and prayer practices.
A debut Christian devotional offers a series of musings on the teachings of the Bible.
Each page of this short work delivers a paragraph or two examining some aspect of the Bible. That passage is followed by a list of the biblical books, chapters, and verses that readers could study for further rumination. For example, the “Praising Him” page begins: “Is that you I hear singing? The noise of rejoicing, your sounds of joyful praise, reflects your strength as the joy of the Lord reigns.” After exploring this subject further, Flanagan suggests that readers refer to Acts 10:38, Nehemiah 8:9, and 1 Kings 1:15-53. The volume’s title describes God, the one who keeps all of Creation in his hands. The author’s prose is calm and coaxing, full of metaphors from daily life that should help her audience more effectively engage with the lessons she is expounding on. While this is certainly a book for practicing Christians to consult as part of their regular prayer and meditation routines, there are some tidbits that readers looking to connect more deeply with themselves or nature will find useful. For instance, Flanagan supplies this valuable tip on the “Seize the Day” page: “The time has come to break free of the worries that tie you down and take away your life, the ones that have come one by one like little threads that tie a cloth. They keep you from living in the moment, causing you to miss the fullness of life.” The author implies in the work’s preface that she has been sharing her wisdom and understanding of the Bible and reflecting on her faith through Facebook and email for some time. Her lucid interpretations are positive and inspirational, providing no trace of fire and brimstone. Instead, they show a deep appreciation for the splendor and wonder of life (“The sun shining through the morning mist calls us to the beauty of the day”).
A worthy guide for Christian readers looking to supplement their daily meditation and prayer practices.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-973611-34-9
Page Count: 126
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
